November 2014 Newsletter – climate and the state election
November 2, 2014 at 11:59 pm morelandclimategroup 1 comment
Welcome to the November 2014 edition of the Climate Action Moreland Newsletter.
Climate Action Moreland Election forum on 17 November. Quiz your candidates on climate policies
By popular demand! Candidates running in the state seats of Brunswick, Pascoe Vale and Broadmeadows are all invited.
Where: Coburg Town Hall, 90 Bell Street, Coburg
When: Monday 17 November 7 to 9pm
Kid friendly: Of course! (It’s their future, after all)
Facebook event: Click here
Other sponsors: Moreland Bicycle Users Group, Moreland Community Against the East-West Tunnel, Australian Youth Climate Coalition and 350.org Melbourne
The federal government is failing us on climate change. We need strong, immediate action from a new state government to slash Victoria’s carbon emissions and protect our communities from climate impacts. See below for some important climate issues for the state government.
Can you help us promote this important event? Invite your friends using facebook, or email them the details. We also need people to distribute leaflets and to ask friendly shopholders to display posters. Please contact us if you can help.
Other candidates forums are being held in Moreland to discuss more general issues. See CAM calendar in the right hand column the right or here.
What else can you do in the coming weeks to support climate action?
A key action for us all is to help make climate change a key issue in the state election
Let’s end the great silence over climate change.
Have you noticed that neither major party want to talk about climate change? Darebin Climate Action Now have been exposing the great climate SILENCE in Northcote. See Melbourne Times, John Englart’s photos and Facebook posting.
Both Labor and Liberal candidates cancelled their appearance at the recent Fair Food Forum. This is of great concern, as climate change is expected to drastically affect food security.
The Liberal Party’s cuts on climate action have been documented by Environment Victoria, so their silence is not surprising.
But what about the Labor Party? We have looked through Labor’s policies and media releases and can’t find any new announcements on climate change. Yes, there are some policies on public transport, but there are so many more important climate change issues that Labor should be pushing. (We did find climate change discussed on page 80 of Labor’s 2014 platform.) So here is our message for the election.
If you have any more ideas for ending the great silence over climate change, please email us your ideas or post them on our facebook page.
We also need to talk about climate change with others in our community.
Psychology for a Safe Climate, have put out a great booklet called Let’s Speak about Climate Change. You can download PDF, or buy a copy. See also a report from the UK on Breaking the Climate Silence.
Another way to help break the silence on climate change is to send your contacts a postcard produced by DCAN. Email us if you would like some to distribute. The graph is from David Spratt’s presentation at the July Breakthrough Forum
Also in this Newsletter: more climate news and events!
The State Election is keeping us all busy. See our calendar of events. Lots has been happening in Moreland as well.
Climate Action Moreland meeting: Monday November 10, 2014 from 6.30pm.
Venue: The Dining Room, Edinburgh Castle Hotel, 681 Sydney Rd (cnr Albion), Brunswick. More information: Andrea 0424 508 535 or SallyRose 0431 445 930
CAM and 350.0rg win award for Divestment Campaign
We are pretty chuffed! CAM and 350.org were recently presented with an award from Environment Victoria for our year long campaign to get Moreland City Council to adopt a process to divest from fossil fuels. More about the award here. Check out the other winners here.
Divestment: Moreland leads the way
CAM and 350.org Melbourne have been urging the City of Moreland to divest from fossil fuels. Our campaign has borne fruit. In October, Moreland became the first council in Victoria to rule out direct investments in fossil fuels and the first council in Australia to start developing a strategy to move investments away from financial institutions that fund fossil fuel developments. More information on our website here. Thanks to the Moreland Councillors who voted for this: Crs Sue Bolton; Lenka Thompson; Lita Gillies; Sam Ratnam; Helen Davidson; and Oscar Yildiz. Thanks to community members who supported the campaign.
Vote Climate Signs
Can you install a Vote Climate sign in your front yard? The Vote Climate campaign is not aligned to any particular political party. If you can help out, please contact Mark by email or on 0432 030 211.
Fair Food Forum
CAM had a stall at recent Fair Food Forum at Coburg Farmers’ Market. State election candidates were also invited to speak to discuss their policies on food security. All candidates standing in Brunswick and Pascoe Vale were invited. Labor and Liberal candidates both cancelled at the last minute. Candidates from the Greens, Socialist Alliance and Save the Planet were all there. You can see our report and recordings of presentations here.
Moreland’s Zero Carbon Evolution Strategy
Moreland Council recently launched its strategy to reduce the Moreland community’s carbon emissions by 22% by 2020. CAM had some input into this strategy. See our report of the launch with videos of the speeches here and you can download the strategy here.
Sustainable Transport
CAM members attended Moreland’s Transport Forum for Liberal, ALP and Greens candidates in the state election. See our report here. Our question to the forum was how the public transport system would cope with a much hotter climate, and how they intended to reduce the contribution that roads made to the urban heat island effect.
Unfortunately only the Green candidate Tim Read seemed to appreciate that heat waves will be a major issue for Victorians in the coming years, and that our infrastructure will need to be able to cope with this. Clearly we need to do much more work in getting the major parties to grapple with the consequences of a much hotter climate. Our report has a summary of how heat waves are expected to affect transport infrastructure. For a 2011 study on Melbourne’s train system and its vulnerability to heat waves see here.
CAM is also working with Moreland Community against the Tunnel (MCAT) to oppose the East-West link. MCAT meet on the 2nd and 4th Thursday of the month at 6:30pm at Temple Park Senior Citizens Centre, Hodgson St, Brunswick. For more info see the MCAT facebook page or contact Sue on 0413 377 978, Michael 0417 354 169, or Riki 0400 877 819
Climate Mobilisation
Did you see CAM at the Climate Mobilisation on September 21? Here is our report.
Photo by John Englart
Climate issues for the Victorian election
There are plenty of ways that the Victorian government could take strong action on climate change:
- Sustainable transport (build more public transport not tollways)
- Renewable energy (how about a Victorian Renewable Energy Target)
- Much stronger regulations on building energy performance
- End Victoria’s dependence on brown coal
- No support for natural gas including fracking
- Protect residents from heat waves, bushfires and sea level rise
- Support local food production
- Much stronger energy efficiency targets
- Get rid of barriers to community solar
- Tackle the urban island heat effect
- Protect and extend our forests
- Protect Victoria’s threatened species
- Promote green jobs
That’s only a start. We are sure you can think of plenty more issues! Come to our forum on November 17 to raise your issues with candidates. Click here for Facebook event. If you can’t come, email us with your ideas. Please promote this event to your contacts. See our list of all the election forums here.
Keep in touch with CAM
Keep in touch at https://climateactionmoreland.org/ or climateactionmoreland@gmail.com Find us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/groups/climateactionmoreland/ Follow us on Twitter at @camoreland. Or call SallyRose at 0431 445 930
Entry filed under: campaigns, news, newsletter, Vote Climate. Tags: newsletter.
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